Poison
by SearchingforSalome
Summary: After their canon marriages, Aragorn ponders what could have been.


**Disclaimer: I don't own anything. This is an Aragorn/Éowyn fic, so if you're not a fan of the pairing, this is your last warning. :P It is**** loosely inspired by the lovely song "Poison & Wine" by the Civil Wars, hence the title. **

Aragorn stood at the balcony, and looked out over Ithilien. It was a beautiful land, quiet now in these days of peace, and Aragorn often wished that he could spend more in its fair valleys.

He had been to this place before, years ago, but not since he had become king. Even now he returned only to stay one night on official business. His duties as king were demanding, more so than he had ever expected when he was a ranger wandering in the woods, or even when he served the lords of Gondor and Rohan as Thorongil. Still, he thought, in all of Gondor there was no place he'd rather be.

These woods reminded him of a time that, though they were only a few short years ago, seemed in the ancient past to him. A time where every moment was spent out of doors. A time of dressing in plain clothes, of kindling fires and guarding gentle regions. A time of loneliness and increasing fear as Sauron grew in strength, threatening everything he held dear, when he had doubted that they would prevail against the power of Mordor.

Despite how difficult those years had been, more than once he had found himself missing them. He knew his duty, had known it when he had taken the throne. He had been born a leader: he had commanded troops for decades, had led the Fellowship as far as he could, and he had found that the difference between leading a band of defenseless hobbits to Rivendell and directing a kingdom had not been very great, though vastly different in their execution. Not, of course that it had been easy; Gondor had fallen into disrepair, and there had been much to do.

He wasn't too caught up in his own thoughts to register the footsteps he heard coming up behind him.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, my lord," said an instantly recognizable voice. Éowyn.

"It is always a pleasure to see you, my lady," Aragorn said, bowing low. She smiled and came to join him on the balcony. They stood for a long moment in comfortable silence, Éowyn glancing at valley below them, Aragorn studying her face for the changes wrought in the past five years.

She was dressed in a simple white dress with her long blonde hair loose about her face. In many respects, she looked just the same as always, but the change was subtler. She had always been beautiful, but now she _glowed, _as if she was on fire from within. The unhappiness he had sensed from his first sight of her, a lonely, haunting figure that held his gaze and fascinated him, had eased, revealing instead a joy that made her unbearably lovely to him.

_I have wished you joy since the first I saw you._

Being loved had made her happy.

"What brings you here tonight, my lady?" he asked eventually.

"I came to tell you that the bedchambers for yourself and your servants are ready," Éowyn said. "Nothing has changed there."

He heard the amusement in her voice and they shared a knowing look. He remembered their conversation, years before, when he was preparing to take the Paths of the Dead and she had said almost the same words to him. He laughed at her joke. Everything had changed.

"Gondor is more beautiful than I could have imagined," Éowyn said. "I'd been here before the war, of course, but you do not see much of the countryside when you are the sister-daughter of the king."

Her words were quiet now, subdued, and Aragorn knew that she was remembering Théoden. His own head bowed, he remembered the small boy that he had seen once in when he rode to war with Thengel, Éowyn's grandfather. The proud king of Rohan, who had died a hero, who Éowyn herself had almost died defending.

With sudden, painful clarity, Aragorn remembered the aftermath of the battle: _the exhaustion in his body and the brightness of the sun. The battle had been won against all odds; the Dead had turned the tide. For a brief moment, he had felt the warmth of the day and exquisite relief. Then he had heard the screams. Éomer was cradling a lifeless form in his arms, his face almost inhuman in its wild grief, and Aragorn had recognized the long blonde hair unrestrained of any helmet. No…no… _

_Éowyn, pale and cold and utterly still in the Houses of Healing, barely breathing...Aragorn touching her arm, bathing her face, praying. Relief, sudden and warm as she opened her eyes and bending to give her a quick kiss on her forehead before he departing. He had heard later how she and Merry had slain the Witch-King in vengeance of Théoden._

He had never been able to tell her that he was proud.

"Théoden was a great king," Aragorn said quietly. "His sacrifice will not be forgotten in Rohan or in Gondor."

He was relieved to see the gratitude in her smile. "Nor will the sacrifice of the others," she said. "So many paid with their life to keep the world at peace." She was a silent a moment, gazing into the valley. "Rohan was where I had lived for all my life. I never thought Gondor would become such a home to me," she said.

Aragorn smiled. "Do you miss Rohan?" he asked her.

"Sometimes. Do you miss your life before you were made king?"

He drew in his breath sharply, surprised how quickly she asked the question he had been thinking of before she came. "Sometimes," he admitted. "My duties keep me busy. It was simpler when I was a ranger. Still, I'm not sorry. However much I miss the wild sometimes, this is where I'm needed."

He thought of Arwen, his beautiful elven wife.

When they had first met, she had seemed to his young mind all of his dreams come true. In the long years following of not belonging anywhere, she had been his hope of a home. Elrond had been firm that only a king would deserve her, and Aragorn had not questioned it. Now that he had married her, however, a question had haunted him on many nights—did Arwen truly love him? He knew, of course, her sacrifice for him—her immortality. Only as he had grown older had he begun to fully comprehend the magnitude of her choice.

Aragorn sighed. She had agreed to marry him, to give up everything for him, but she had watched him depart into darkness and danger year after year, spending decades of her dwindling time waiting for him to earn her hand. Though Aragorn loved Arwen, loved her still, he knew that he did not love her in a way a husband should love his wife.

As he looked across to Éowyn, she smiled, and he saw in her eyes that she understood all he had not said. Without a word, their hands clasped in a simple gesture of friendship.

Aragorn remembered the last time he had spoken to her alone, the night he had gone to recruit the Dead to fight in the living's war. Éowyn had given him her love and understanding when he had needed it the most, and in return he had given her a lie and a truth: _It is but a shadow and a thought that you love. I cannot give you what you seek_. The look in her eyes still haunted him. That she had found happiness here, with a man as good as Faramir, was a comfort to him.

Would they have been happy, had they married? If he had never met Arwen, or if he had understood his own feelings better when he was a young man in Rivendell? Could she have gotten what she needed from him?

"You deserve more than what I could have given you, Éowyn," he said softly.

She looked down for a moment. "We're both where we should be, my lord," she whispered.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The next morning, Aragorn made ready to take his leave. Faramir was seated at the end of the main hall with Éowyn curled up beside him. Aragorn heard her sudden laughter at something Faramir had said, and even from this distance he could hardly mistake the love in her eyes.

When he approached, flanked by servants, Faramir and Éowyn jumped to their feet. "It was an honor to have you here with us, my lord, even if only for so short a time," said Faramir, bowing.

"The honor was mine, my friend," said Aragorn, clapping him on the shoulder, and they smiled at each other.

"My lady," he said to Éowyn, taking her hand and kissing it. For a moment, he smelled on her skin the sweet scent of forests and saw her hair, her beautiful hair, glisten with the sun on the mountains. When he met her eyes, they were filled with a bittersweet yearning she could not conceal.

As he mounted his horse, he looked back. The couple was arm in arm, her head on his shoulder, watching them go. Aragorn was reminded again of his first sight of her.

Éowyn no longer stood alone.

He smiled, seeing how the sunlight illuminated her, and turned his horse without another glance to lead the others down the road.


End file.
